Reply To: CHAIN EVENT has ended!

Caro, I just want to reach through the screen and give you a hug. You’ve been through the wringer. I’m sorry for your loss.

I’m so glad you see the importance of self-care. It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn–am still learning.

I always maintain that the most useful thing about chains and NaNos and Sprint-in-a-Week challenges are the lessons we learn about our process and how it changes over time due to life and circumstance.

I like the quarterly goal idea! I loved your YouTube video suggestion so much I’ve told a bunch of people about it and I made my own Kanban board based on the suggestions in the video. It’s been a great productivity tool for me and really helps with my anxiety.

I’ve got something for everyone who left a video suggestion. So, when you get a chance, send me your address and the name you want me to use. My email is cpitone1@yahoo.com

I’ll fess up — January sucked bad for me and after the first two weeks, no writing got done except for a few notes. There was illness, a death in the family, and work. Lots of work.

The folks at the very top of the food chain decided a project has to be done in six weeks (not enough time), only to then start shortening our deadlines. I’m working evenings and weekends, which is leaving little time and, most importantly, little energy for writing.

The productivity chain was never far from my mind, though, and I have learned some things:

1) As long as I’m at this job, there will be periods when executives forces outside my control will demand things and not care you might have a life outside work.

2) Retirement cannot come soon enough.

3) While long-term goals are fine, serious planning only 90 days out helps me feel like I haven’t blown the whole year. January sucked, but I don’t have the massive burden of having messed up the neatly laid-out 12-month schedule after only 31 days. I’m doing what can in February, then I’ll relook at the schedule at the beginning of March, maybe going to a rolling 90-day goal setting, where I re-set at the beginning of each month.

4) Never, never, underestimate the value of self-care. If you do’t take care of yourself, you can’t trust that anyone else will.

5) Life is too short, no matter how long we have, so hold those you love close. When they’re gone, remember the good times.